Holodeck is just around the corner

Except for haptics.

EXISTENZ IS PAUSED!

IIRC, both 2001(1968) and Solaris(1972) depict that kind of things as part of alien euthanasia process, not as happy endings

Also The Matrix, Oblivion, etc.

Well, 2001 is actually a happy ending, as Dave is reborn as a cosmic being. Solaris, at least in the book, is an attempt by the sentient ocean to communicate with researchers through mimics.

Have you ever played a video game? This is unbelievably depressing. This is a future where games like Slay the Spire, with a unique art style and innovative gameplay simply are not being made.

Not to mention this childish nonsense about "forget they're playing a game," as if every game needs to be lifelike VR and there's no room for stylization or imagination. I am worried for the future that people think they want these things.

Its a good thing. When the printing press was invented there were probably monks and scribes who thought that this new mechanical monster that took all the individual flourish out of reading was the end of literature. Instead it became a tool to make literature better and just removed a lot of drudgery. Games with individual style and design made by people will of course still exist. They'll just be easier to make.

The problem is quite the opposite, that AI will be able to generate games so many game with so many play styles that it will totally dilute the value of all games.

Compare it to music gen algo's that can now produce music that is 100% indiscernible from generic crappy music. Which is insane given that 5 years ago it could maybe create the sound of something that maybe someone would describe as "sort of guitar-like". At this rate of progress it's probably not going to be long before AI is making better music than humans. And it's infinitely available too.

There are thousands of games that mimic each other, and only a handful of them are any good.

What makes you think a mechanical "predict next frame based on existing games" will be any good?

Oh, because we can link this in with biometric responses - heartrate, temperature, eye tracking etc.

We could build a 'game' which would learn and adapt to precisely the chemistry that makes someone tick and then provide them a map to find the state in which their brain releases their desired state.

Then if the game has a directive - it should be pointed to work as a training tool to allow the user to determine how to release these chemicals themselves at will. Resulting in a player-base which no longer requires anything external for accessing their own desired states.